Skills

People make things happen. Connecting and collaborating with colleagues and customers is how innovative and successful products are brought to market. Together we can create great things.

Design Thinking is the methodology I embrace to ensure target customers and stakeholders are involved in all phases of product development. By empathizing with customer needs, iteratively prototyping solutions, and incorporating feedback, Design Thinking enables businesses to deliver products and services that empower their customers to succeed in their endeavors.

User personas help product development teams understand and empathize with people who will use the  products they create. Knowing and embracing personas is an effective way to keep users at the center of the product design and development process.

Applications used: Google Draw, Atlassian Confluence, Google Doc, Microsoft Word

Empathize is the first stage of the Design Thinking methodology. Conducting generative customer/user research provides the needed insight into the goals, wants, needs, and problems of target customers. This enables development teams to understand and empathize with target customers.

Methodology: Establish research objectives, develop research plan, compose research protocol-script, recruit participants, conduct pilot research session(s), conduct research sessions, compile and analyze research information, present and publish research findings.

Applications used: Online Meeting Apps, Maze, online research services.

Writing user stories helps to align project stakeholders on not just what is being developed, but why. User stories are, at their very core, a user-centric tool for the product development team. Creating user story maps helps to organize and prioritize individual user stories within a specific product or service. 

Methodology: User story mapping puts the focus on the user, ensuring that the backlog contains stories that add real value to the customer by helping them achieve their goals. Plus, story mapping allows your team to plan and order their work so that it delivers the highest value to customers first.

Applications used: Google Doc, Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign, Atlassian Confluence 

Establishing and documenting product requirements (business, customer, platform, regulatory, etc.) informs the product roadmap and development process, and permits for the comparison of the requirements and the results during development. This will visualize project progress and show if objectives are being achieved for the product.

Applications used: Aha!, Atlassian Confluence, Google Doc, Microsoft Word, Doors

Writing use cases provides documents which describe all the steps taken by a user to complete an activity. Each use case describes one way the system is used, but one of the big benefits of use case modeling is that it also describes all of the things that might go wrong. Identifying exceptions to a successful scenario early in the project saves a lot of time by finding subtle requirements.

Applications used: Google Doc, Microsoft Word, Miro, Atlassian Confluence 

Design brainstorming meetings are dynamic gatherings which promote stakeholder collaboration, bringing together diverse perspectives to ensure a comprehensive and user-centered approach. Visual thinking plays a pivotal role, with participants using quick sketching to convey and explore design concepts visually, promoting shared understanding. Within this creative environment, the process of solution exploration encourages innovative thinking, allowing participants to challenge norms and generate new ideas.

Applications used: Miro, paper, pencil, whiteboard, markers, post-it notes, camera.

Creating the information architecture and taxonomy for a website or application organizes the content and functionality in a logical manner, making it easier for users to comprehend and navigate the site or application. This foundational work has a significant impact on the overall usability of the site or application.

Applications used: Omnigraffle, Microsoft Visio, Adobe Illustrator, Atlassian Confluence

Creating user flow diagrams provides visual depictions of the path(s) a user moves through to complete a specific task or activity. One of the significant benefits of user flow modeling is that it also visualizes the paths a user moves through when things go wrong.

Applications used: Omnigraffle, Microsoft Visio, Adobe Illustrator, Atlassian Confluence

Creating low and/or high fidelity page wireframes provides a simple visual representation of the pages, navigation, and functionality of an application or website. They establish the overall structure and organization, helping to create a smooth and easy-to-use experience while investing a short amount of time at the beginning of product development.

Applications used: Figma, Sketch, Balsamiq, Omnigraffle, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Visio 

Producing or acquiring all of the needed written, image, video, and audio content media is an essential step in completing development of a product. This includes product line and company branding media as well.

Applications used: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Apple iMovie, Apple Final Cut Pro

Companies use design systems to codify and scale design efforts across their organizations. Using the design system increases collaboration, ensures consistency, and accelerates product design and development.

Applications used: Atlassian Confluence, Figma, Sketch

Creating high fidelity page mock ups is a key step not just for designers, but also for project stakeholders. They help to find and fix visual inconsistencies early in the process. Page mock ups are also used for testing  with target customers to obtain their input and verify the effectiveness and usability of the product design.

Applications used: Figma, Sketch, Axure RP, Adobe Photoshop

Building low or high fidelity product UI design prototypes for stakeholders and target users to interact with will help to expose problems and identify opportunities improvement. This allows changes to be made to a product design prior to final development and deployment.

Applications used: Figma, Axure RP

Conducting usability testing during product development enables the identification of design issues and opportunities for improvement before the product is completed and deployed. The earlier issues are identified and fixed, the less costly the fixes will be in both effort and impact to schedule.

Methodology: Establish test objectives, develop test plan, compose test protocol-script, recruit participants, conduct pilot testing, conduct testing, compile and analyze test information, present and publish test findings.

Applications used: Online Meeting Apps, Maze, online research services.

Creating and publishing design specifications bridges the gap between the design and development phases of developing products. They are the single source of truth that everyone depends on. They simplify and accelerate the process of delivering high quality products complete and on time.

Applications used: Figma, Aha!, Atlassian Confluence, Atlassian Jira